


Tell Me Where It Hurts

by tinyinkstainedbird



Category: Impractical Jokers
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 04:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17114138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyinkstainedbird/pseuds/tinyinkstainedbird
Summary: You and James Murray have a past you don't talk about. But when you get hurt, he's the first one at your side.





	Tell Me Where It Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the anon who requested:
> 
> _"May I please have a drabble/imagine about Murr with the following prompts: a cold cup of coffee, a cut lip, and a leather chair?"_
> 
> Here it is! Sorry it took me 500 years!

You’d slept together years ago -- both of you drunk and rebounding -- but that’s not why he’s the first one at your side when you hit the ground.

Lucky for you, you’re six drinks deep into the night, so you don't feel the full impact of whatever knocked you down. You do, however, feel someone touch your face, and maybe it’s the blow to the head or maybe it’s the gin or maybe it’s the ridiculous realization that even though he hasn’t touched you in years, you’d still know his hands with your eyes closed. You don’t know, but all of a sudden, here you are, on your back on a sticky bar floor, laughing.

James Murray is the king of improvisation and rolling with the punches, so he follows your lead and laughs with you. The room is spinning and he’s smiling and you don’t mind any of it.

“Think you knocked a couple of screws loose,” he teases, settling down on the ground next to where you lay. His body leans over you as one hand pulls the hem of your dress back down over your knees and the other cushions the back of your head. “You okay, sweetie?”

Your laughter peters out as you try to blink out of your sudden daze. You’re tipsy, yes, but you aren’t drunk enough to be laid out on the floor. “I think so.”

With his free hand, he holds up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three,” you reply. “What happened?”

“You just took an elbow to the face from some drunk asshole,” he tells you. “What’s two plus two?”

“Four, idiot,” you laugh. “Shouldn’t these questions be harder?”

“You might have a concussion,” James says. “What’s your zip code?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“How about your phone number?”

You roll your eyes, but your hand closes softly around his wrist. You’re light-headed and you want him close. “A little late to ask me that one, Murray.”

You throw him off just like you always do, and he stumbles over his words like he always does, and you love him just like you always have.

Of course he was the first one to go to you when you fell -- even after all these years, he keeps his eye on you like no one else does. Even after that stupid drunken mistake that made it so you can’t talk to each other like you used to. He might not have even come near you tonight if you hadn’t fallen, because on nights out with your mutual friends like this when liquor’s involved, you both keep your distance so you don’t end up going home together.

But here he is, just the same. Here he is, just like he’s always been.

“I’m fine, honestly,” you say, taking pity when he can’t bumble his way out of this one. He looks at you with a crestfallen expression like it takes him a second to realize you’re talking about your head, not your heart. “Quit looking at me like that.”

James lowers his gaze obediently. “How about we get you off this gross floor?” he asks, buzzing with nervous energy as he springs to his feet and then reaches back down to take your hands and pull you up. “You came with Alyssa, right? Where’d she go?”

Alyssa’s your best friend and newly single. You were supposed to be her wingman, but she didn’t need any help tonight. “She ditched me for dick the second we got here, bless her heart,” you say. “Last I saw, she was making out with one of your producer friends.”

He chuckles. “Was it Chase?” he asks. “I don’t blame her.”

“Me neither,” you chuckle back.

He looks at you, his hands wringing themselves out like he just doesn’t know what to do with you, but he's thinking about it. “So we’re on our own here,” he says.

“Except I’m fine,” you reply.

“Except you hit your head,” he says. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks earnest and nervous. “Sit down while I get you some water, okay?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “I should get going soon anyway. Go back to your friends.”

James runs a hand over his head, holding the back of his neck as he looks at you. “You’re my friend.”

You smile, and that’s when you realize your lip hurts. You put a hand to your mouth and feel the cut, seeing blood on your fingertips when you look down. “What the fuck.”

“Come on, let’s get you that water,” James tells you, slipping your hand into his and pulling you through the crowd. You barely notice his friend Q going toe-to-toe with the guy who’d struck you, picking a fight not for your honour but just because that’s what Q does when he’s drunk.

You’re dizzier than you’re going to admit, so you don’t hold James’ hand as tightly as you’d like to. But you don’t need to squeeze to know that they’re still writer’s hands, as soft and strong as you left them. You remember the way your fingers brushed when he handed you the first chapter of the book he’d written, and you remember how his smile was nervous but his hands weren’t, and when he looks back at you now, you realize nothing’s changed.

At the bar, his hand hovers behind your back as he asks the bartender for a water. You roll your eyes at how charming he is with her, and you thank him as you take the glass but you don’t look at him as you take a sip.

James winces with affection as you put the glass to your lip and frown in pain. “Put ice on that when you get home,” he says. “And make sure your boyfriend keeps an eye on you just in case you do have a concussion.”

You take another sip of water, the ache in your lip sharp and numb at the same time. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

James is baffled, hands in his pockets as the cogs in his brain shift. “What about that guy you brought to Sal’s birthday?”

“That was a year ago,” you say. “We broke up in February.”

“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t know.”

You shrug. “We don’t talk.”

“You and your ex?”

“Me and you.”

He smiles in that way he has, where you can tell he’s a little frustrated but doesn’t want to give up any power. “We could.”

“We’re busy,” you say, trying to let both of you off the hook. “You have your show and I have my bullshit.”

James laughs, but it’s cut short when you pitch forward as a wave of dizziness crashes into you. He pulls his hands out of his pockets to take you by the arms and steady you. “Hey,” he says, a nervous laugh in his voice, and holds you up. “Come sit down.”

“I’m okay,” you lie.

He smiles with a knowing little wink. “Speaking of bullshit.”

“I think I just need a little nap.”

“No, no, no,” he says, waving his hands. “You can’t nap if you have a concussion. Do you still live in Cobble Hill?”

“Bushwick,” you reply, and in your foggy state you can’t help but remember your Cobble Hill apartment and how he’d looked in the morning light beside you. You wonder if he’s thinking about it too.

He’s concerned. “That’s even farther.”

“I just take the M train,” you say, then second-guess yourself. “Hmm. No. The L.”

“You're not taking the subway, I'll call you an Uber,” he offers. “Do you have a roommate to stay awake with you?”

“I’m okay, Jamie,” you tell him, and that’s when you both know you’re not. You haven’t called him Jamie in years. “James. Murr. Sorry. Don’t worry about it.”

“Too late,” he smiles at you. “Seriously, I can’t let you walk out of here on your own.”

Not like he did to you, you think to yourself, but before you can say anything, his thumb is on your lip, and you raise your eyes to meet his.

“You need ice for this,” he says.

“Yeah, I’m going,” you say.

“I’m not far from here.”

“James,” you sigh. But what else can you say? Your head’s swimming. Your lip’s bleeding. You can’t imagine staying awake on the subway long enough to get to your stop in Bushwick, which, if you’re honest, isn’t the safest neighbourhood even when you’re sober and don’t have a head injury. What the fuck is your argument, exactly? _You can’t take care of me because I thought I loved you once?_ Let him try.

James looks at you, and you’ve never seen him so afraid of rejection. That’s not the James Murray way. He’s always known -- long before that drunken night, long before the show, long before all the other girls after you -- that 90% of the time, people are going to tell him no. He goes for it anyway. “What do you say?”

You surrender. “Okay,” you say. “Let’s go.”

He smiles, fretful but relieved. He takes your arm as you waver. “I’ve got you.”

He always has.

+

He wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t far. You wonder how many times he’s made this walk home from the bar with other girls, and that’s your way of reminding yourself that this isn’t special; he’s just a friend doing a nice thing.

Then he takes off his jacket and hangs it over your shoulders and offers you his elbow to hold. He’ll never be your friend.

Passersby smile at you. James is chatting your ear off, dressed sharply in his bowtie and polished shoes, and you’re holding his elbow, unable to keep your head from resting against his shoulder. You lean into him like an old habit as you take your time wandering up the streets of Manhattan, and people probably think you’re on a date that’s going well. You’re glad.

Your feet are getting heavier but your head feels like it’s floating as James leads you into a brownstone apartment. The show must be doing well, though it’s still modest enough that you’re charmed. You’re utterly helpless in more ways than one tonight, and God, you hope he doesn’t notice all of them.

Inside, you both go for the button to call the elevator at the same time, and James bumbles and falters as he apologizes, so awkward it’s painful. It makes you smile, which hurts your lip. When the elevator arrives and he ushers you inside with a hand on your back, you smile again, and this time what hurts is your heart.

You prop yourself up in the corner so you can take a break from his hands; he leans against the opposite wall and looks up at the ceiling so he can take a break from all the things he sees in you.

The elevator lurches to a stop and you feel like you’re falling, but James slips an arm around your waist. “I’m at the end of the hall,” he says. “Are you gonna make it?”

You scoff. “Do I seem like I can’t walk down a hallway?”

“Kinda, yeah,” James laughs as he steers you down the hall. “But I’m not sure if it’s because of the gin or the concussion.”

You look at him. “How did you know I was drinking gin?”

“Gin’s your poison,” he replies. “Historically speaking, anyway.”

You smile. “You remember that?”

James shrugs. He parks you against the wall while he fishes his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door. “I remember that,” he says. “Come on in.”

It’s the kind of apartment a kid dreams of having when he grows up: stocked with video games and memorabilia and alcohol and even a pinball machine, a brazen mix of nostalgia and adulthood. He hangs his accomplishments on his walls and keeps his curtains open to the sparkling city skyline, but it’s lonely. It’s just like him.

“Here, settle in while I get you some ice,” James tells you, leading you to the living room, where you gratefully curl up on the couch. “Don’t fall asleep.”

“Got it,” you say, eyes already closing.

“What did I just say?” he laughs, seizing you by your shoulders and pulling you back up to your feet. He directs you into a leather armchair. “No sleeping.”

“No sleeping,” you promise, giving him a smile to say you understand. As soon as he leaves for the kitchen, you’re out like a light.

James comes back with a tea towel wrapped around a bag of ice cubes. He perches on the arm of the chair and gently wakes you up. “Hey,” he says softly, holding the ice out to you. “This is for your lip.”

You blink, trying to shake out of the heavy drowsiness weighing you down, and go to take the ice, but your arm is too tired to hold it up so you end up resting it on your lap. James picks it back up, his finger brushing over your bare leg in the process, and he holds it to your lip while you rest your head against his shoulder. “I need you to stay up just a little longer,” he tells you.

“Okay,” you whisper, safe and cozy. “It smells good.”

“I put some coffee on,” he says. “I thought it might keep you awake and sober us up.”

You think about that for a moment, the sweetness and the sadness of it, and wish you could go back to the last time you had coffee together. It was before that stupid night, back when you two could talk a mile a minute for hours. “Are you drunk?” you ask.

“Definitely,” he laughs.

You love the feeling of his laughter against you. You should’ve known. His voice always goes scratchy when he’s drunk. “I love that you still drink your girly drinks,” you say.

“You noticed that?”

“Hard not to.”

“I mean,” he says, and sounds like he’s grinning. “If it has an umbrella in it, I’m sold.”

You smile against his arm. “I like that about you.”

“You're the only one.”

A sentence you never thought he'd say to you, but always hoped he would. It takes you a second to move past it. “Were you having fun?”

“Oh yeah,” he says. “The music was fantastic.”

“It was,” you agree. “I saw you and Joe dancing to Nicki Minaj out there.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing,” he chuckles. “Starships is my jam, I can’t resist it.”

“I could tell,” you laugh. You’d wanted to dance with him, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Thanks for looking after me. I know you were having a good time.”

“Oh,” James says, and you feel him shrug. “No big deal, I mean -- honestly, it’s nice hanging out with you.” He barks a laugh. “It shouldn’t have taken you getting clobbered by an elbow to get us to hang out again.”

“It’s been awhile,” you admit. You don't want to admit anything else.

Neither does he. “I'm gonna go see if the coffee’s ready,” he says, full of jitters as he carefully slips his shoulder out from under your head and gives you the ice pack to hold. “You got that?”

You nod, but as soon as he's gone, you doze off again, the ice pack on your lap and your head in your hands.

“Sweetie, you gotta get up,” James tells you, but he doesn't have an authoritative bone in his body, and you're so tired.

“Just like 5 minutes,” you mumble, and you hear him set two ceramic mugs down before his footsteps walk away and cross the room. There’s a scratch and then some soft crackling as he puts on a record.

Soon, The Beach Boys drift dreamily into the room, as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” begins to play, and you open your eyes because what he doesn't know is that this song always reminds you of him. Even after all these years, you hear it and you think of him and his smile and how he lit up the room in a way only you could see, because this was the song that was playing the first time you saw him.

You don't have time to think before suddenly the ice pack is off your lap and on the arm of the couch, and then you're on your feet and your head’s back on his shoulder, and you're standing with no choice but to let him hold you. He's built like a pencil but he's strong enough to take your full body weight and keep you on your feet. You're swaying, but so is he.

“Are we dancing?” you ask.

James’ hand goes to the back of your head, his touch gentle on the goose egg you got from your fall. His other arm is around your back, holding you tight and close against him. “Just trying to keep you from falling asleep,” he says. “I googled what to do if someone has a concussion, and I’m supposed to make sure you're okay enough to hold a conversation before I let you sleep.”

“You googled it,” you chuckle, nestling your forehead into the crook of his neck. “That’s sweet.”

“It's the least I can do.”

“Why?” you ask, and then smirk wryly against his skin. “Or is that not the kind of conversation you want to have?”

His neck twitches, the motion making you dizzy. He’s uncomfortable but trying. “I have to make it up to you somehow.”

This is the first time you’ve almost talked about it. The alcohol combined with the blow to the head make you feel like you have no idea what’s going to come out of your mouth, so you bite your tongue and wrap your arms around his back.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?” he asks.

“No.”

“You have to talk to me,” James says, and this time, you really don’t know if it’s your head or your heart he’s worried about. “What are you thinking?”

He’s right to worry about both, because neither has a filter right now. “We stayed friends,” you say. “So we couldn’t have gotten it all wrong that night.”

His thumb’s rubbing a little line back and forth at the small of your back, smooth and deep on the way down, his nail dragging along your skin on the way up. “We didn’t get anything wrong that night,” he says. “It was the morning after that we fucked up.”

That makes you so sad. “We never should’ve slept together,” you say. “It ruined everything.”

“You just said--”

“I know, but that’s because I’m so used to looking on the bright side when it comes to you.” The way his thumb is moving on your back is driving you crazy and you want to push him away and pull him close at the same time. “When I don’t feel like going to a party, I tell myself _hey look on the bright side: James might be there._ You’ll say hi to me and ask how I’ve been and that’ll be it and I’ll tell myself _okay sure that fucking hurt but on the bright side at least we’re talking again._ We didn’t talk for two months after we had sex, and I told myself _yeah but on the bright side he was everything you thought he’d be.”_

“I was?”

“Don’t fucking flatter yourself,” you snap. “That’s all you heard?”

“No, I heard the rest,” James says. “I just don’t know what to say.” He laughs, twitches his neck, and when that makes you shake your head and start to pull away, he puts his hands on your face and stops you. “I know, kind of ironic that the master of bullshit doesn’t know what to say, right?”

“A little,” you say, but it comes out gentle.

“Ask any of my friends,” James tells you. “I always make a fucking mess of everything.”

You don’t want to, but you smile. You don’t need to ask anyone that, because you remember. James Murray is a disaster: clumsy and careless with his head in the clouds and his foot in his mouth, full of foolproof plans that always blow up in his face, so full of energy he can’t stop himself from making everyone around him want to throttle him. You’d always found it charming.

“And while you’re at it,” he says, “ask them how I felt about you.”

You blink, taken aback. You don’t dare to get your hopes up. “What would they say?”

“That whenever you’re at a party, I don’t hear a word they say to me,” James tells you. “Joe would tell you I was impossible to live with for awhile. Sal would tell you I ruined The Beach Boys for him, because every time I hear this song I talk about you.”

“This song?” you ask. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”

He smirks with a shrug. “Yeah. That’s probably kinda cheesy, but yeah.”

You shake your head. “Why?”

“It was playing the first time I saw you.”

The fog you’re in suddenly lifts. You search his face, and the years you’ve lost fade away along with the fog. Suddenly, you’re back at that party ten years ago, and the only reason you’re there is because your boyfriend at the time guilted you into it. New York City was still a stranger to you back then and you were having a hard time making friends, not quite used to the feeling of being lonely and surrounded by people yet. You were thinking about telling your boyfriend you were going home, with or without him, but then someone changed the song from something clubby to The Beach Boys. There was something gentle about “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” that you’d forgotten, and it wrapped itself around you in a way that finally made this city feel like maybe it could be home. You decided to wait until the end of the song before you left.

And that was when James S. Murray walked in.

He was handsome and wearing a horror movie t-shirt and laughing when he walked through the front door, taking such delight in the boisterous man beside him that it more than caught your attention. His blue-eyed friend was clearly the life of the party, but it was James that made you look a little longer than you’d usually allow yourself to. You’d never seen a smile like that before.  

Now, ten years later, you hold him tighter, swaying in his living room with the Beach Boys singing just as gently as ever about a future you two will never have. You had no idea this song means the same to him as it does to you, and now you don't know what to do. “You were wearing an Evil Dead t-shirt,” you tell him.

James smiles, his eyes lighting up. “You were wearing a black sweater,” he says. “Which was covered in cat hair because you were hanging out with the cat instead of actual human beings.”

“Well yeah,” you say. “If there’s a cat at a party, that’s where I’ll be.”

“I know,” he chuckles. “You’re still like that.”

You shrug. “I’m still shy.”

“Just selective, I think,” James says, a purr in his voice. “You were the one who came up to me that night, not the other way around.”

“I couldn’t listen to your laugh from across the room all night and _not_ introduce myself,” you say. “Your laugh’s a fucking showstopper, did you know that?”

There it is. His ridiculous little giggle climbs up an octave. Talk about taking delight. That’s exactly what you do.

 _“You’re_ a fucking showstopper,” he says. “Did you know that?”

You shake your head. “Then why did you leave?”

“Back then?”

You roll your eyes. “Of course back then,” you say. “That’s the only time you ever left me.”

“When it counted most, you mean,” he mutters.

“No, that’s not what I mean, actually,” you tell him, impatient and aching. The song has ended and now it’s “Good Vibrations,” which is too happy for the moment but suits him so perfectly. You can’t listen to it.

You pull out of his arms and walk across the room to his record player, pausing it. You look back and he’s standing there in the middle of the living room where you left him, just as gentle and inviting as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” was all those years ago, and you want to pause this too; you want to rewind and go back and play it again because it would be so, so nice -- but instead, you turn away.

“Not a Good Vibrations fan?” he asks, his dark eyes following your every move, sizing you up, planning his next approach.

“Too cheerful,” you say, dizzy as you head for the leather armchair.

“You okay?”

“I need to sit down.”

James moves towards you, to be there if you need him, but you don’t. You find your way to the chair, where you curl up and take a sip of lukewarm coffee just to give your hands and mouth something to do. While you hold the mug in your hands, James pulls the coffee table closer and then sits on the edge of it, his elbows on his knees and his knees almost touching yours. Then he just looks at you, waiting.

“Better?” he asks. He picks up the ice pack and holds it out to you. “Here.”

You trade your coffee for the ice pack and press it to your lip. “Better.”

His eyes roam over you, from your bare legs to the goosebumps on your arms to your wounded lip. “You look cold.”

You’re freezing. “A little.”

James jumps up and grabs a blanket off the back of the couch, then wraps it around your shoulders, making sure it covers your knees. It’s too sweet and too much and too late and all you can do is drop your arm and look up at him.

He bites his lip and sits down on the arm of the couch, scooping up the ice pack from your lap where you’ve dropped it, and then presses it to your cut. “What did you mean?” he asks quietly.

You close your eyes, melting into the ice he’s holding to your lip. You’re warm again, and comforted, and safe, and it reminds you of all the times he walked you home and right to your door. You remember him sticking up for you when your ex told you to stop being a bitch in front of all your friends, and how tall he’d seemed, how angry. You remember when you told him you wanted to pack your dreams up, cash it in, call it a loss, and he’d given you the pep talk to end all pep talks, and how you walked away feeling like you could conquer the goddamn world because of the way he believed in you.

Of course having him so close reminds you of that night. You’ve never forgotten what his hands could do. You’ve never forgotten his hips or his mouth or what happened when they went to work on you. Whenever he bites his lip to this day, you think of that night and the moment when you came and he looked up at you with his lip between his teeth. Of course you still think about that night, especially now, alone for the first time in years, his body warm and right here, but it’s more than that. It always has been.

You close your hand around his wrist and tug gently to make him lower the ice so you can speak. “That one time we slept together, James?” You lock eyes with him. “That wasn’t what counted most.”

James tilts his head, taking an extra beat before he smiles at you. “Really?”

You shake your head. “Not even close.”

He shifts closer and brings you in against his chest, a hand in your hair as he holds you to him. “I lived with Joe back then,” he says. “Do you remember?”

“I remember,” you say. “That’s why we went to my place that night instead of yours. You guys lived in a one-bedroom.”

James chuckles. “That was an adventure.”

“I bet.”

“I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night,” he tells you. “I knew it probably didn’t mean anything, because we were drunk and we were both on the rebound, but I’d liked you for a long time and I wanted it to mean something, you know?”

You nod.

“Another thing you can ask my friends about is how I always have to have a fucking plan,” he says. “I laid beside you all night just trying to come up with a way to convince you that you and I could work.”

“Clearly you didn’t come up with anything,” you say. “You were gone when I woke up.”

“No, I had a whole day planned,” he laughs. “But first I was going to text Joe to tell him why I hadn’t come home so he didn’t think I’d been murdered.”

You smirk. You’d certainly wanted to murder him when you found your bed empty and his shoes gone the next morning.

“I accidentally picked up your phone instead of mine the next morning,” he says. “Your ex had texted you. I didn’t read the whole thing; I just saw enough to know he still loved you and wanted you back and that I didn’t want to see the look on your face when you read it. So I left. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”

You don’t lift your head to see if he’s lying. You remember that text. You were so upset over James leaving that when you finally looked at your phone and saw the text from your idiot ex, you just wrote back _fuck off_ in capital letters and then you washed your sheets.

You burrow in closer. “It took me longer to get over one night with you than it did to get over that entire relationship.”

He holds you tighter. “I don’t think I ever did.”

Finally, you look up at him.

He looks down with that smile, eyes warm and adoring, and then he reaches out a gentle hand and touches your split lip with his thumb. “Does it hurt?”

You nod. “Yes.”

James bites his lip.

You smile. “You should kiss me anyway.”

James grins, sliding his thumb off your lip and moving his fingers up your jaw so he can hold your face in his hand. He leans down, his forehead against yours. “Stop me if I hurt you.”

You laugh softly. “Not my style.”

He’s gentle but it still hurts and you don’t care. This kiss is sharp and painful and sweet as hell and soon he’s in the chair with you and you’re on his lap, where he kisses you until the coffee goes cold. You’re dizzy and the room’s spinning but you’re not going anywhere, happy and safe in his arms, kissing the lost years away. You feel him smile against your lips and you pull back to look at him. “What?” you laugh.

“Nothing,” he grins, looking anything but innocent.

You grin back. You can practically see the gears turning in his brain. “Coming up with a plan?”

James kisses you as his hands go to your waist. “A couple.”

You kiss the tip of his nose. “Ow,” you laugh. “Gonna tell me what you have up your sleeve?”

He smiles. “You should get some sleep first,” he says, fingers gingerly touching the bump on your head. “And then I was thinking we could grab some breakfast.”

You smile. You kiss him. It hurts. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”


End file.
